Changes

From TheBookbag
Jump to navigationJump to search
no edit summary
Reviews by readers from all the many walks of literary life. With author interviews, features and top tens. You'll be sure to find something you'll want to read here. Dig in!
Find us on [[File:facebook.gif|link=https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk|alt=Facebook]] [https://www.facebook.com/TheBookbagCoUk '''Facebook'''], [[File:twitter.gif|link=http://twitter.com/TheBookbag|alt=Follow us on Twitter]] [http://twitter.com/TheBookbag '''Twitter'''] and , [[File:instagram_classic_logo.png|link=https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/|alt=Follow us on Instagram]] [https://www.instagram.com/thebookbag.co.uk/ '''Instagram'''] and [[File:LinkedIn.png|link=https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-bookbag-1b12a264/|alt=LinkedIn]]
There are currently '''{{PAGESINCATEGORY: Reviews}}''' [[:Category:Reviews|reviews ]] at TheBookbag.
Want to find out more [[About Us|about us]]? __NOTOC__
'''Read [[Forthcoming Publications|reviews of books about to be published]].
 
<!-- INSERT NEW REVIEWS BELOW HERE-->
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1838773169Sylvie Cathrall|title=Her Majesty A Letter to the Queen Investigates: The Windsor Knot|author=S J BennettLuminous Deep
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary= There are few greater joys than a book which lives up to a compelling premise. And this is one of them.
|isbn= 0356522776
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0008517061
|title=Death in a Lonely Place
|author=Stig Abell
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=It's early 2016 and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is Former Metropolitan Police detective, Jake Johnson, has settled into his rustic life at Windsor for the Easter CourtLittle Sky. She's having There’s perhaps a dine and sleep at little uncertainty about the request future of Prince Charleshis life with his vet girlfriend, who's attempting to raise money from some rich Russians for one Livia and her daughter Diana, as moving in together would mean a lot of compromise: does Jake give up his pet projects. There'd been a distinctly Russian flavour off-grid and relaxing life to move in with Livia or does Livia move to Little Sky despite her reservations about whether or not this is the evening future she wants for herself and one of her daughter? For the performers brought moment they’re enjoying life in to play the piano has been found dead in what can only be called embarrassing circumstances. The immediate reaction is that one of present and putting the guests is responsible. The Queen mentally rules out her racing manager, an ex-ambassador to Moscow, future on the Archbishop of Canterbury and Sir David Attenborough. One couldn't bear to go down any of ''those'' roadsback burner.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Matt Haig1786482126|title=The Midnight LibraryJanus Stone (Dr Ruth Galloway)|author=Elly Griffiths|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionCrime|summary= Between life and death there is Builders were demolishing an old house in Norwich - the site was going to hold seventy-five 'luxury' apartments - when they discovered the bones of a child beneath a librarydoorway. And so There was no skull. Was this a ritual killing or murder? Inevitably, 38 minutes after Nora decided to die, she Dr Ruth Galloway finds herself in the Midnight Libraryworking with DCI Harry Nelson. Everything that could've gone wrong in Nora It's life has. Her cat dieddifficult as Ruth knows, she lost her job, her brother wonbut Nelson doesn't speak to her, her parents are dead, the boy that she teaches piano to no longer cares about piano, she called off her wedding, and old Mr Banerjee next door no longer needs her help. She gave up on all is pregnant with his child as a result of the things that would've let her escape the wet, cold town of Bedford and given her life one night they spent together some purposeful directionthree months ago. So at 23:22 Her condition will be obvious before long, she realises that she isn't made for life and decides to die. But instead of death, she finds the library. Each infinite shelf not least because Ruth is filled with books, each book providing a chance prone to try another life she could have lived, in a parallel time. And so, just after midnight on Tuesday the 18th sudden bouts of April, Nora Seed begins to live every life she could'vesickness.|isbn=1786892731
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=03494230830008551324|title=Death and the Brewery Queen The Devil You Know (Kate Shackleton MysteriesD S Max Craigie)|author=Frances BrodyNeil Lancaster
|rating=4.5
|genre=Crime (Historical)|summary=Kate Shackleton runs her investigation agency It's unusual for anyone from Batswing Cottage, ably assisted by Jim Sykes, who lives in Woodhouse and her housekeeper, Mrs Sugdenthe Hardie family to approach the police. She's been approached by William Lofthouse of Neither side likes or has any respect for the Barleycorn Brewery in Mashamother. Something But Davie Hardie is going wrong with his business struggling in prison and he'd like Kate s prepared to look into it discreetly: he's hoping that his nephew tell the police where the body of a missing person is buried and right-hand manwho was responsible for her death. This person, James Lofthousehe promises, is someone big and it will be back from a trip to Germany before longworth the police doing what he wants. James went And what he wants is to be transferred to an open prison to see what serve the continental brewers were doing remainder of his sentence and what changes Barleycorn might need to makeget an early parole date. William Not much to ask, is worried that James is perhaps enjoying himself a little bit it? The new Deputy Police Constable doesn't think so and she'too'' much or is going s even prepared to bring back a German bride but he'd like do the business to be shipother thing that Hardie demanded -shape before his nephew returnsmake certain that DS Max Craigie and anyone who works with him is kept well away from what's happening.
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Caroline Scott0008405026|title=When I Come Home AgainA Stranger in the Family (Maeve Kerrigan 11)|author=Jane Casey|rating=4.5|genre=Historical FictionCrime|summary=1918 It's sixteen years since nine-year-old Rosalie Marshall disappeared from her bed one summer night. She was never found and the investigation ground to a young man is arrested in Durham Cathedralhalt. He refuses to give a name Now, no matter how hard they push he will not say who he is. Eventuallyher mother, they determine this isn't willful obstinanceHelena, he doesn't answer because he doesn't knowand her father are dead in their bed. He remembers being on Initially, it looks like a straightforward murder/suicide but there's something about the road for a long time and being frightened, and some positioning of the faces from the road, but other than bodies that – everything that came before has gonemakes DS Maeve Kerrigan and her boss DI Josh Derwent suspicious. They need What looked as though it was going to be an open-and-shut case is now a name for complex double murder. Kerrigan is convinced that the forms and so they call him Adam and, because he was found explanation lies in the Galilee ChapelRosalie's disappearance: others (such as Derwent's boss, it becomes Adam GalileeUna Burt) are less convinced.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0571379877|title=The Kellerby Code|author=Jonny Sweet|rating=3. A fanciful name for 5|genre=Crime|summary=Edward Jevons is a tired working-class young man in , obsessed with his upper-class friends, Robert and Stanza. Robert's a dishevelled uniform who doesntheatre director. He't know who s also self-obsessed, demanding, handsome and entitled and uses Edward to run errands for him. Edward has been in love with Stanza since their university days - and he is, where 's drunkenly confided how he is feels to Robert. Most men in Robert's position would stay away from Stanza or how tell Edward that a relationship had begun between them but he got there's not like most men: Edward is left to stumble upon the two of them kissing in a dark passageway.|isbn=1471192172
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1529410347Jo Callaghan|title=Death Awaits in Durham (Kitt Hartley Yorkshire Mysteries)|author=Helen CoxLeave No Trace
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=Kitt Hartley's assistant, Grace Edwards, has left her library job and taken When a place man is found crucified on the Venerable Bede Academy's vocational library studies course top of a hill in Durham. It's an unusual place Nuneaton, DCS Kat Frank finds herself assigned to study as students with government grants are not accepted, so most of the people attending are scions of the seriously richcase alongside her sidekick, scholarship students - or they've managed, somehow, to scrape together the moneyAI detective Lock. Grace, whoIt's 22their first live case together, comes into the last categoryhaving previously been very successful with several cold cases. Her parents agreed to fund the course but told her But when there is a second body found crucified a few days later, Kat is suddenly struggling with a potential serial killer and a very high profile case that if that was what she chose draws a lot of unwanted attention to do then they were finished with hertheir AI Future Policing project. Not long after she started Will they be able to solve the coursecase in time, Kitt Hartley came for a visit - or will Kat find herself taken off the case and immediately discovered an unsolved disappearance , potentially, out of a student from a year ago.career?|isbn=139851120X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Vincent Panettiere1399613073|title=These Thy GiftsMoral Injuries|author=Christie Watson|rating=4.5|genre=General FictionThrillers|summary=''2006 Olivia, Laura and Anjali met on the first day of medical school and their friendship would keep them inseparable for a quarter of a century. Olivia is ruthlessly ambitious, which is a tumultuous year for the Catholic Churchbonus when you aim to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. Reports of horrific sexual abuse are becoming widespread Laura is a perfectionist and a trauma doctor. Monsignor Steven Trimboli Anjali is troubled. He worries for the future free spirit of the church—and rightly so. A new crime will soon reverberate throughout his church group and hit closer to home than he ever imaginedshe becomes a GP. When we first meet them they're at a drug and alcohol-fuelled party and itAs ageing priest Steve Trimboli begins s going to try to make sense of the child sexual abuse scandal that is rocking his beloved Catholic church, he discovers that one child end in his own parish has been abused by a priest sent by his bishoptragedy. And this isn We don't just any boy: this is Steve's grandson whose mother is know who suffered the tragedy or the consequences. Twenty-five years later there will be an eerily similar event that will impact the offspring of a long past relationship between Steve and a gangsterthree friends. This time, it's widow. Steve is determined to seek justice for this boy and all their teenage children victimised by priests who have been protected by his churchare involved. But he must also face up to his own failings, going right back to his breaking of the celibacy vows.|isbn=1503199886}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=18003211040241636604|title=The Body on the IslandTrading Game: A Confession|author=Nick LouthGary Stevenson
|rating=4.5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=1035021803
|title=The Antique Hunter's Guide to Murder
|author=C L Miller
|rating=3.5
|genre=Crime
|summary=A prison transport left HMP WakefieldIt's twenty years since Freya Lockwood has been back to the English country village where she grew up. She's back now because of a request for help from her beloved aunt, heading for HMP Spring HillCarole. Steve Freya's former mentor and Aaron were accompanying Neil Wright who Carole's close friend, Arthur Crockleford, is dead and the circumstances seem suspicious, to say the least. Arthur was 67 years old and the reason why Freya had served six years for not been back to the manslaughter of his wifevillage: Arthur, she feels, let her down badly. Only that wasn't who he wasEven though they were in business together as antique hunters, she has not felt able to be near the man or pursue the profession she loved. Sixty-three-years-old Neville Rollaston had served thirty years for After the split, she worked in a cafe, met and married James (on the murder of five boys between rebound from the ages love of ten her life, who was murdered) and Freya and seventeenJames have now divorced. He was being ghosted out of Wakefield }}{{Frontpage|isbn=AllTomorrowsFutureCover|title=All Tomorrow's Futures: Fictions that Disrupt|author=Benjamin Greenaway and into a Stephen Oram (Editors)|rating=5|genre=Science Fiction|summary=''Opening up new identity set up in a deal whereby he divulged the whereabouts ways of thinking about the body shape of one of his victimsthings to come.'' I've heard it said that 'technology' is what happens after you're eighteen. The Bogeyman was going to be set free on 2 July 2019Well, I must confess that there have been more than a few decades of technology in my lifetime. He appeared I've kept up reasonably well with what's advantageous to be a reformed character me but he had a list I'm left with the feeling that it's all getting away from me. Some of it is - frankly - quite frightening. Of course, I could research the possibilities and the probabilities and end up down rabbit holes without really understanding whether I'm reading someone who knows what they're talking about or the latest conspiracy theorist. I needed people upon whom he wished to exact revengeI knew I could trust and who could deliver information in a way I could understand.
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1473692407Sunny Singh|title=The Book of Two Ways|author=Jodi PicoultHotel Arcadia|rating=43.5|genre=General FictionThrillers |summary=Dawn Edelstein The Hotel Arcadia is a death doula: luxury hotel in an unnamed city that's someone has suddenly been violently taken over by a terrorist group. Hiding from the terrorists who is are rampaging through, killing everyone on site, there for the person who is dyingSam, a wartime photographer and Abhi, the hotel manager. As Abhi continues to make their passage try to whatever they believe care remotely for the residents who are still alive in as easy as possible and the hotel, he forms a bond with Sam who refuses to support their carers. It's a rewardingbe cowed by events, caring occupation and Dawn puts keeps on venturing out of her heart and soul into it but this wasnroom to try to capture what't always s happened through her lifephotography. Some fifteen years ago she was a graduate student at Yale working towards her doctorate: Although they only ever talk over the phone, their friendship grows as an Egyptologist, she was working with Abhi tries to help her supervisor, Professor Ian Dumphries, on keep safe and they both wait to see if they will be rescued before they are discovered by the Djehutyakht tombs at Deir el-Bersha on the Nile in Middle Egypt. Then she was Dawn McDowell: that was her maiden name, the name she published underterrorists.|isbn=086154742X
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Delia Owens1529153298|title=Where The Crawdads SingList of Suspicious Things|author=Jennie Godfrey
|rating=5
|genre=General Fiction
|summary= In 1952It's 1979 and Margaret Thatcher is Prime Minister. (A woman? I mean, Kyahonestly...) She's not what's worrying Miv's mother disappeared up the dirt track to townfamily, wearing her alligator heelsthough. Women have been disappearing. Well, and never came home. Then one by one her siblings leftthey've been murdered, ran from the shack on the North Carolina marsh that served as home and the life that would lead but to nothing but suffering, leaving 7-year-old Kya with her drunken fatherhave 'disappeared' doesn't sound quite so frightening. Years pass and Kya - now nicknamed Miv'Marsh-Girls upset because she' – still yearns for a mother s overheard that would never return and grew up far too fast for a girl who can neither read nor write. Finally, one night her father never came home leaving Kya completely alone wants to survive on move the marshfamily 'Down South'. Eventually When you're from Yorkshire, as the years drift painfully byDown South is a frightening, the time comes when Kyaforeign place, now an emotional and vastly intelligent young womanbest avoided. For Miv, yearns for company besides the gulls and the landmove would mean leaving her best friend, Sharon, yearning to be loved and she'll do anything to be heldprevent that. So, when 2 boys from She's not worried about the town of Barkley Cove find their way to dangers or that her, she finds a new way of life. But in 1969, the body of former star quarterback and new husband Chase Andrews is found lying in the mud of the marsh, and everyone in town immediately suspects the mysterious, runMum's stopped talking -down Marsh-Girlto anyone. Who is Kya now, after years of isolation and a broken, hardened heart? Is she really capable of murder?|isbn=1472154665
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=David C Mason1398524085|title=Pandora's GardenerHas Anyone Seen Charlotte Salter?|author=Nicci French|rating=35
|genre=Crime
|summary= John Cranston Charlotte Salter was expected at her husband's fiftieth birthday party but never turned up. Her children, sons Niall, Paul and Ollie and her daughter, Etty. are all worried but - strangely - her husband, Alec, is a gardenernot. Shortly afterwards, Etty and Greg, although what he did before he became a gardenerfind the body of Greg's father, he claimsDuncan Ackerley, is classifiedin the river. That is just as well because he is about It was an easy assumption for the police to be caught up in a criminal / spy / terrorist plot, where only make that Duncan had murdered Charlie and then committed suicide when he couldn't stand the guilt. The Salter children are not convinced but there's little else they can save the daydo but get on with their lives and wonder about what really happened. |isbn=0956180523
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=03565124791035906708|authortitle= Alix E HarrowDiva|titleauthor= The Once and Future WitchesDaisy Goodwin|rating= 4.5|genre= FantasyGeneral Fiction|summary=''There's no such thing We tend to think of Maria Callas as witchesGreek, but there used she was born to Greek parents in Manhattan, New York, in December 1923 and only moved to beAthens when she was thirteen. Her original surname was Kalogeropoulos but her father changed it to 'CallasIn 1893, after the purges and the burnings, witching has been reduced to little make it more than weak charms and simple spellsmanageable in the States. If women want to hold power When she was back in their handsAthens - supposedly so that she could get appropriate training for her voice - she was raised under the Nazi occupation by a mother who mercilessly exploited her and made no secret of her preference for her elder sister, to have their voices heard, it is now through women's suffrageJackie.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Onjali Q RaufChristopher Edge|title=The Night Bus HeroBlack Hole Cinema Club|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary=Hector is Lucas and his friends are all booked in for a movie marathon at their local cinema, a bullyplace that has the nickname of 'The Black Hole'. Egged on by his two 'friends'All big movie fans, he takes other childrenthey's sweetsre looking forward to lots of exciting films, harasses and threatensmany, plays pranks at school, and gets into trouble at every turn. many snacks! Yet he finds himself frustrated when something actually isn't his faultHowever, but then he isn't believed as everyone expects him to be telling lies. Nothing seems fair. His parents are barely homethe movie starts, and seem to only care they very quickly realise that something about his perfect sister this new film format is very different, and his annoying little brother when they are, and his teachers have abandoned him as a lost causeswept up into an adventure they couldn't even imagine. So what happens when, in trying But as they lurch from one film genre to tell the truth & fight next, can they figure out what on earth is going on? Will they ever get back to be believed, Hector finds himself embroiled with the police; first trying to accusecinema, and then trying to save a homeless man from his local parktheir real lives?|isbn=15101067741839942738
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1849767343Rachel Greenlaw|title=Count on Me|author=Miguel TancoCompass and Blade|rating=43.5|genre=Children's Non-FictionTeens|summary=''I can hear the song of the sea. The title call of the deep, the answering beat in my heart.'' Rosevear, a remote and partially forgotten island, survives on luring ships into the rocks and format plundering the wrecks. Mira, like her mother before her, is one of this book might lead you the seven who swim out to think survey the ruins – rescuing any survivors and any treasure that itlies within. But when the Council Watch lays a trap to end the wrecking, they capture the island's either about responsibility - or itleader and Mira's father. Desperate to save him from death, Mira makes a basic 1-2-3 book for those just starting out on bargain with a wreck survivor who is as charming as he is secretive and with only coordinates to guide her, she sets off in search of a family secret that lies buried deep in the numbers sea. With only nine days to unearth what might save her father, as her journey. It isn't: it's a hymn takes her from the watched streets of praise foreign islands to maths. Itthe heart of the smuggler's about why maths is so wonderful territory, Mira must be determined to stop at nothing to save the future of her home and how you meet it in everyday lifethe ones she holds most dear.|isbn=0008664730
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1849766920James Sherwood Metts|title=Everything is MINE|author=Andrea D'AquinoPlanet Storyland
|rating=4.5
|genre=For SharingConfident Readers|summary=Marcello Von Cauliflower Bonaparte Jackson is Things have been a schnauzer: what else could you be with a name like that? He knows that you'll realise that he's kindbit sticky for the Earthlings. AI and automation have been proceeding apace, clever and loyal. Youoften replacing jobs they'll also need re paid to know do and other tasks that everything is '''MINE'''took time to accomplish. And he means ''everything''Just as they were beginning to get used to all this technological change and starting to think of other, new ways to spend time, along came an awful pandemic. It begins Life was pretty much shut down and, along with the slipper: mum still has one. Why would she need more? You sense that Marcello feels that he's being generous in allowing that. Then it was , all the pork chop. Well, did you see anyone's name many daily social interactions on it? ''And'' he left the carrots for Leo. That's another example of Marcello's generosity. There was the acorn which squirrel was gnawing at: there was no documentation to prove ownershipthey depend so heavily. And talking of ownership the tree would provide all the sticks he could ever want to chew. There's nothing unreasonable in any of that, is there?|isbn=1736128426
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1849767009Matthew Tree|title=It IsnWe't Rude to be Nude|author=Rosie Hainell Never Know|rating=4.5|genre=For SharingLiterary Fiction|summary=This could have been one of those books which 'preaches to the choir': the only people who'll buy it are the people who know that nudity is OK and the ones who ''know'' that it's shameful will avoid it like they avoid the hot-and-bothered person in the supermarket who is coughing fit to bust. But... Rosie Haines makes it into something so much Timothy Wyndham wants nothing more than to be different from his father, a book about not wearing clothes. It's a celebration drunk and chronic underachiever whose dreams of being exceptional at any of bodies: bodies large and small his artistic passions all failed miserably and who had endless crises of every possible hueself confidence. Bodies with disabilities So Tim applied himself to his studies, cultivated his abilities rather than his daydreams and markings. They're fine. In fact, they're wonderfulset himself high but achievable ambitions.|isbn= B0CVFXPGP8
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0241295955A G Slatter|title=Trio|author=William BoydThe Briar Book of the Dead
|rating=5
|genre=General FictionFantasy|summary=It was 1968: the year when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated. It'' There's also the year when YSK Films are making a movie in Brightonpart of me that wants to keep this just to myself for however long I can. This secret magic of my own, all mine, at last. I just want to enjoy it for a while. It's called ''Emily Bracegirdle's Extremely Useful Ladder to  Within a remote mountain pass, far away from the Moon''world, or ''Ladder lies Silverton; a town under the protection of the Moon'' as itBriar's known on set, a family of witches who protect the town and the wider world from the Darklands. Anny Viklund Though she has always wished for magic, Ellie Briar is the female star in a production which is proving first non-witch to be just born into her family for generations and as such since she was young, her training as a little bit racketysteward revolved around letters and administration rather than spells and potions. There are odd pressures on When her grandmother suddenly dies, Ellie's cousin Audra becomes the Briar Witch, the producertown's leader, and Ellie takes her place beside her. As challenges come her way left, Talbot Kyddright and centre, Ellie uncovers the rare ability to employ this old actor friend for a couple of days because he needs communicate with the moneydead, allow putting her at the heart of a fading star maelstrom of chaos. Reeling from one family secret to use his catchphraseanother, or include a song from Ellie must decide who to trust and determine what to do as the leading manBriar witches' legacy, everything they have sacrificed to survive, whose musical star is fadingunder threat.|isbn=1803364548
}}
 
{{Frontpage
|isbn=B08B39QNRH1529900360|title=The Curious History of Writer's Cramp: Solving an age-old problemGhost Orchid|author=Michael PritchardJonathan Kellerman
|rating=4
|genre=Popular ScienceCrime|summary=It hadn't been Lt Milo Sturgis'Society is based s fault that Alex Delaware had been badly injured but he felt responsible and even after Alex recovered, Sturgis was reluctant to ask for his help on speech but civilisation requires the written word''difficult casesI came to Michael Pritchard His assertions that there were only open-and-shut cases which didn's ''The Curious History t need the help of Writera psychologist only worked for a while. Finally, it was Robin, Delaware's Cramp'' by a rather strange routepartner, who nudged Milo into asking for help again. I have problems with my hands which orthopaedic surgeons refer to as 'interesting': I prefer She knew that the word 'painful' but I have an interest in involvement was something that the way that hands workman she loved needed. The next case did look simple, though. An exploration of Two lovers were murdered in the history swimming pool of a problem which has defeated some of remote property in Bel Air. He was the best medical minds for some three-hundred-years seemed liked excellent background reading heir to an Italian shoe empire and she is married to an extremely rich man and so it proved, with 's not the book being as much about the doctors treating Italian. But which of them was the sufferers and the changing medical attitudes as the problem itself.primary target?
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Blake Nuto and Charlotte Ager1529395224|title=Child Letting the Cat Out of the Bag: The Secret Life of Galaxiesa Vet|author=Sion Rowlands|rating=3.5|genre=For SharingAnimals and Wildlife|summary=What does it mean to be alive? Siôn Rowlands fell into veterinary science accidentally. What are we made of, His father was a GP and where are we going? Rowlands didn't want to follow in his footsteps, particularly when he considered the strain that being on-call put on his father'Child s life. When he was seventeen he took the opportunity of Galaxies'' is doing work experience with a family friend who was a lovely children's picture book that deals with all vet and was convinced this was the big questionsjob for him. Before long, he was at Liverpool University. Written It hadn't - as with so many students - been his dream since he was a poemchild. If anything, the lyrical words donhe't shy away from darkness, nor talk down d wanted to the children you are reading to, but rather than work beautifully together with the illustrations to create be a powerful, uplifting reading experienceprofessional footballer.|isbn=1912497425
}}
{{Frontpage
|authorisbn=Lilja Sigurdardottir and Quentin Bates (translator)0861541774|title=BetrayalA Nye of Pheasants|author=Steve Burrows|rating=34
|genre=Crime
|summary=Meet UrsulaDCI Domenic Jejeune's close friend and former colleague, the stand-in ministerDanny Maik, drafted has taken a short holiday in from outside the leading party to cover the post for a year. You might get Singapore to meet her hunky husband she can't believe she deservesup with an old ally, and the children who are ignorant of just how she spent all her empathy for them on previous jobs in the foreign aid charity sectorGuy Trueman. You'll meet her ministry's cleaner, who bizarrely has fallen into the task of helping Maik was involved in a street brawl - he would later maintain that he was facing a famous newsreader man armed with her Tinder profilea knife - and he killed a Ghurka. You'll certainly meet a homeless trampInitially, who has taken one look at he faced a newspaper image charge of Ursula, and, knowing her of old, decided she needs saving from manslaughter but evidence came to light that suggested that he might have planned to murder the devil posing beside herman. You'll meet the ministerial bodyguard and driver Now he could be facing the tramp almost immediately forces Ursula to acceptdeath penalty. But Domenic Jejeune can do nothing to help as for the first ministerial case, of any interference from another police force could provoke a woman demanding her daughterdiplomatic incident and wouldn's rape get looked t help Danny at and pronto, nobody can say, for all records of Ursula's meeting with the woman have been wiped…|isbn=1913193403.
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Tania UnsworthAlexander McCall Smith|title=The Time Traveller and the TigerPerfect Passion Company
|rating=4.5
|genre=Confident ReadersGeneral Fiction|summary=Elsie The Perfect Passion Company is a dating agency in Edinburgh, run by Ness and operating as an ordinary sort of girlalternative to all the online apps in providing a more personal, tailored service. The sort of small girl who often gets overlookedNess has asked her younger cousin Katie if she could come and look after the business, and forgottenas Ness is planning to take a trip to Canada to get away for a while. She Katie is quietcoming out of a break up with a bad boyfriend, and compliant, and makes so jumps at the best of whatever happens chance to come home to herEdinburgh. So when her parents forget that her school holidays have started before they are free And so begins this new story from Alexander McCall Smith, bringing us to take care of heran Edinburgh we already love, they have thanks to arrange for her to go 44 Scotland Street and stay the Isabel Dalhousie novels, but with her Great Uncle for a weeksome new characters who quickly begin to charm. Poor ElsieKatie has no experience in running a business, forgotten againor in match-making, but Ness has full confidence in her abilities, and there's always her very helpful (and rather handsome) neighbour, William, just decides to make the best lend a hand…|isbn=1846976596}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0811771741|title=InstaKnits for Baby|author=Melissa Leapman|rating=4|genre=Crafts|summary=Melissa Leapman's ''InstaKnits for Baby'' gives us a collection of thingsknits from toys to blankets. On investigating Some will be quick knits - others are of the house she finds that her Great Uncle had lived 'long, cosy afternoons in India as a boy, and he has an enormous tiger rug on the floor of one front of the roomsfire' variety. When Elsie asks him about The projects are divided by the rug he seems unhappytime they'll take to complete - less than five hours, five to ten hours, ten to twenty hours and he says he has to keep it because he was more than twenty hours. All the one who shot the tiger when he was 12 years oldprojects are attractive, modern and he says it was the worst thing he ever diduseable. So I perhaps show my age when Elsie suddenly finds herself magically transported back many, many years, to the time in India when her Great Uncle was 12 years old, she believes I wonder about 'social-media-worthy projects' but that she must try to stop him from killing the tiger, in order to put something right that happened a long time ago's me being picky.|isbn=1788541707
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=1472127013Dean Koontz|title=Agatha Raisin: Hot to Trot|author=M C Beaton and R W GreenThe Bad Weather Friend
|rating=4.5
|genre=CrimeParanormal|summary=Raisin Investigations had quite Benny is having a bit of work on handterrifically bad day. The chairman of Philpott Electronics was concerned about He loses his managing directorjob, Harold Cheesemanhe loses his fiancee, who had apparently returned from Australia because and his wife did not like it therehouse gets trashed. This was unusualOh, and someone has delivered a really weird, as disturbing coffin-sized object to his wife had died before Cheeseman went to Australia. Then there home, and it's possible that whoever or whatever was inside is the Chadwick divorce: Chadwick was convinced thing that has trashed his wifehouse! The thing is, Sheraton, was seeing another manBenny is the very last person to deserve all this bad luck. He is a nice person. A really nice person. Mr Gutteridge wanted Raisin Investigations to instal listening devices in So fortunately for Benny it turns out that the staff canteen: he wanted delivery to know what the staff were saying about him and his secretaryhouse is a new friend, a bad weather friend called Spike, who was has been sent to help him since Benny is clearly under attack from Genevanefarious forces for being a good person. ApparentlySpike is going to take care of Benny, and will certainly take care of Benny's enemies, the staff called her The Swiss Roll. Then there was the murderif he, Benny, and Harper (a waitress slash Private Investigator who finds herself roped into Benny's wild adventure) can figure out who exactly they are.|isbn=1662500491
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbnauthor=0008420386Adam Stower|title=Failosophy: A handbook for when things go wrong|author=Elizabeth DayMurray and Bun|rating=4.5|genre=LifestyleConfident Readers |summary=What do Malcolm GladwellMurray is supposed to be a humble, Alain de Bottontidy and friendly cat, Phoebe Waller-Bridgeone who is able to sleep and eat and eat and sleep and, Lemn Sissaywell, Nigel Slaterwhatever takes his fancy next of the two. But he's a bad magician's cat, Emeli Sandéso his favourite bun has been turned into a hyperactive sticky rabbit called Bun, Meera Syaland the catflap they both use can chuck them out, Dame Kelly Holmes not into the regular back garden, but into a world of frightening adventure and Andrew Scott have in common? whiffs. They've all failed and - more importantly - they've been willing This time round it drops them into a Viking land, where a troll hunter is expected – well, one much bigger than Murray was, to appear on Elizabeth Daybe honest, but he's podcast to discuss their failures turned up and how life worked out for them afterwards. Youhe'll find the results of these discussions in ''Failosophy''have to do…|isbn=0008561249
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=0571362672B0C47LV1PC|title=SnowFragility|author=John BanvilleMosby Woods|rating=54|genre=Crime (Historical)Literary Fiction|summary=Can you make a ''Yo birthing person''Welljoke? And if you could, at least is the question should you make it? Or is the question if you're a Wexford mandid, would it land? The catch is that the answer for both could well be.... no.''
So said Colonel Osborne when he welcomed DI St John (pronounced 'Sinjun') Strafford to Ballyglass House just before Christmas 1957. Osborne was master of the Keelmore Hounds and had done something memorable with the Inniskilling Dragoons at Dunkirk. The niceties had to be established even when there was a Catholic priest dead on Fragility'' is set as the library floor with some precious bits city of his anatomy missing. Strafford was from Roslea at Bunclody and thisPortland, along with his good-but-shabby suitOregon, marked him out as of Osborne's class and obviously Protestant. The dead priest was Father Tom Lawless cautiously begins to emerge from Scallanstown, who - despite the different religions - was in restrictions imposed during the habit of spending time at Ballyglass House. His horse was stabled there.covid pandemic
}}
{{Frontpage
|isbn=17874776301529431735|title=The Postscript MurdersWinter Visitor|author=Elly GriffithsJames Henry
|rating=4
|genre=Crime
|summary=When a 90-year-old-woman with a heart condition dies peacefully in her armchairIt's February 1991 and Essex is bitingly cold, it really shouldnwhich made Bruce Hopkins't be suspicious and that was return all the view taken by DS Harbinder Kaur until she spoke to Peggy Smith's carermore surprising. Natalka Kolisnyk was adamant that there was more to PeggyHe's death than met d been exiled on the eye - particularly Costa del Sol as she knew that there was no heart condition and that Peggy had worried that she was being followeda wanted drug smuggler for a decade. Then there was the fact that Peggy was a 'murder consultant' who helped authors with knotty plot lines in their books: she knew more The return has come about murder than any elderly woman should need to know.}}{{Frontpage|isbn=0008330131|title=The Stolen Sisters|author=Louise Jensen|rating=3.5|genre=Thrillers|summary=When we start because he''The Stolen Sisters'' we know that twentys had a letter from his ex-years on from a dreadful event they are all healthy adults. Wellwife, theysaying that she're healthy in the physical sense, but Carly has trust issues, Leah has OCD s ill and Marie drinkshasn't long to live. TheyIt're the Sinclair sisters s hard to feel any sympathy when Hopkins is abducted, stripped to his underwear and one day they were all stolen. Carly was thirteen-years-old and she was sent to a watery grave in charge the boot of her sisters, the eight-year-old twinsa stolen Ford Sierra. Much as she loved them Carly was desperate to get Is it a text warning from Dean Malden and her mobile phone held her attention. Leah and Marie were nattering about a lost ball and Spanish gang or a fleece which had been left outside. The gate wasn't shut properly and Bruno, their boxer dog, escaped. As the three girls went problem closer to chase after him they were snatched by two men.home?
}}
{{Frontpage
|author=Stephen FabesAlex Bell and Tim McDonagh|title=Signs of Life|rating=5|genre=Travel|summary= I was brought up on maps and first-person narratives of tales of far away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had which was the guts to simply go out and do it. I also didn't inherit the kind The Glorious Race of steady nerve, ability to talk to strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the requisite 'bottle'. In order words I'm not the sort of person who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. Fabes did precisely that.|isbn=1788161211}}{{Frontpage|author=Arvin Ahmadi|title=How It All Blew UpMagical Beasts
|rating=4
|genre=TeensConfident Readers| summary=18-year-old Amir Eli is American Iranian, a Muslimbusy lad – by day an apprentice in the wondrous library we start by visiting with him, and gay. He struggles with his identity, unable to face telling his parents who he really is, so when another student in the evening a helper at the dessert cafe his school starts blackmailing him, threatening to show his parents photographs of Amir kissing his boyfriend Amir panics gran owns and runs away...to Italy! So begins a journey for Amir, and Eli lives with his familylovely gran, where they all discover more about him, and who he really too – for there is, and who he really wants to be.|isbn=1471409929}}{{Frontpage|author=Antoine Laurain|title=The Readers Room|genre=General Fiction|rating=3.5|summary=Violaine's publishing house has had a great success, and it was through generation missing in the slush pile of unsolicited manuscriptsfamily. The three people who work in the ReadersA few short years ago, Eli' Room s parents were both lost to sift through what is ninetythe titular race, a globe-nine per cent dross – plus trotting adventure where all entrants have to navigate the fourth advisor world in her rarefied mansion up the road – all agreed the book would be company of a huge smash, and so it has provenmagical beast. But there are several 'howevers' This has made the race anathema to that. As in, however the pair Violaine herself is not having life all her own way, for she has been involved in but when a near-fatal accident, and starts this book coming round from a coma. And, however – despite all urging, bad incident at the author of the book has never once made themselves known eatery leads to the publishers in persona confession from gran, and in fact offered up a most peculiar statement-come-threat in their last email. What Eli knows his only hope is going to befall Violainedare to enter what he most hates, her memory, her staff – and how much is any with the sole aim the prize of it due to magic at the hit novel? And just where end – the heck did that come from?only thing to possibly save his gran.|isbn=19104779740571382231
}}

Navigation menu